


caught you as i floated by

by citadelofswords



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Temporary Character Death, Immortality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7153580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citadelofswords/pseuds/citadelofswords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan is the first one to say that attachments to mortals are stupid. Raven usually seconds him, when they meet for drinks that get none of them drunk. Darwin never understood the point of avoiding attachments, never realized what it would mean to lose someone he loved, until he watched Raven grieve after losing Angel, after losing Azazel, after losing Irene.</p>
<p>Even then.</p>
<p>Darwin practiced caution, not outright rejection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	caught you as i floated by

**Author's Note:**

> Katherine prompted me with a "the biggest rule of immortality is to not get involved with mortals but whoops I was in a coffee shop one day and fell in love with you and now I'm freaking out bc in the grand scope of things we don't get a lot of time together but fuck no please don't leave me not yet no" au like over a year ago and I finally wrote it and then it ran away from me like a lot
> 
> this is so freeform, I played with style a little bit with this one and I like how it turned out. also completely unbeta'd and written in like an hour at 11:30 at night
> 
> title from anathema's distant satellites, I highly recommend them and that entire album for some ambient sad unconditional love music

Their story begins and ends and begins again in front of a hole-in-the-wall coffee place in the Village. Darwin orders the same thing every day except for the day that he meets Alex, the first time, when Sean tells him that they’re out of espresso so Darwin just orders a hot chocolate instead. It’s not like he’s exhausted enough to need a caffeine hit, after all. It’s not like he even needs the caffeine hit, which is a good thing, because he turns around and promptly walks into a blonde man who is decidedly not paying him any mind, and spills the chocolate all over his nice white t-shirt.

“Oh, no,” Darwin says, which is an understatement. The man looks furious, but then, curiously, his face blanks.

“No harm done,” the man says. “Wasn’t hot enough to burn me, anyway. I expect Sean made it?”

“I resent that,” Sean pouted, crossing his arms.

“Let me buy you another one,” the man says, and leans over to the counter. “Make it right this time, buddy.” Sean sticks his tongue out and turns away.

“I— I can’t—,” Darwin says, actually stammering for the first time in his life, because the man has looked up and he has narrow eyes that seem to stare straight through Darwin’s head like he can see everything inside.

“Let me,” the man says. “I’d love to stay and talk, but I need to run home and change before I miss my class. Sean, put it on my tab.”

“You got it, boss,” Sean says, in a monotone, and the blond man grins and hurries off before Darwin can ask for his name, or better yet, his number.

“Who was that?” Darwin manages, finally.

“Who, Alex?” Sean says, leaning over the counter. “Just some upstart physics major. I dunno. Why, you think he’s cute?”

“I think his eyes are an ocean,” Darwin mutters.

Sean, who knows a thing or two about the immortality curse, whistles lowly. “Hard luck.”

 

* * *

 

Darwin knows exactly two people who have the curse, aside from himself.

Raven Darkholme, who is a shapeshifter, has been around since the Revolution, at the earliest. She’s one of the only Immortals who isn’t sterile; her son Kurt doesn’t know who his mother is, and when Darwin broaches the subject Raven’s eyes turn cold and he sees nothing of her for a few days. Logan wasn’t born immortal; the curse was laid upon him when scientists encased his skeleton in adamantium. “The older I get,” Logan said gruffly, one night, having drunk enough to become a little loose-lipped, “the more agonizing the pain becomes, until one day I think I won’t know what it’s like to not be in pain. And then it’ll get worse.”

Logan is the first one to say that attachments to mortals are stupid. Raven usually seconds him, when they meet for drinks that get none of them drunk. Darwin never understood the point of avoiding attachments, never realized what it would mean to lose someone he loved, until he watched Raven grieve after losing Angel, after losing Azazel, after losing Irene.

Even then.

Darwin practiced caution, not outright rejection.

 

* * *

 

And then he fell in love with Alex Summers over a spilled mug of hot chocolate.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later, a confrontation goes badly and Alex accidentally unleashes loops of plasma that Darwin is too surprised to adapt to in time to avoid bursting into atomic particles.

_Well, fuck_ , thinks his consciousness, somewhere on another plane, before winking out.

 

* * *

 

Alex, who has spent the last two weeks working up the courage to approach the cute guy who spilled coffee on his only not-stained white t-shirt, only blinks at where Darwin used to be. “Um?” he says to Sean, because the fact that no one is saying anything is a new experience. The last time he blasted someone to non-existence, he got solitary.

Sean doesn’t move.

_Hello, Alex_ , says a voice in his head. _I’ve taken care of all that. You and I should have a chat._

_No, thank you,_ Alex thinks politely, and time snaps back to full speed, almost huffily.

 

* * *

 

Raven brings a new Immortal, a scared fifteen year old who wears jackets and leather gloves in July, to Logan two days after Darwin falls to atoms outside a hole-in-the-wall coffeeshop.

“I wish Darwin were here,” Logan says. “He’d probably manage to hug you all you needed without draining.”

As if summoned, Darwin’s consciousness winks back into being, and he reforms surrounding Anna Marie’s scared form.

“It’s all right, kid,” he says. “You’ve got family in us.”

 

* * *

 

“As it stands,” Darwin says to Alex, outside that same fateful coffeeshop, while Sean busies himself making their drinks, “we don’t get much time together.”

“Does that scare you?” Alex asks.

“Sometimes,” Darwin admits. “But I think that comes with the curse. You know?”

“It’s not a breakable curse, is it?” Alex asks.

“it might break with a cure, but why would I cure the awesome gills I get when I go swimming?” Darwin shoves Alex’s money aside to pay for their coffees himself and they walk down the street together, drinking quietly.

“I’ve considered the cure, if they released it,” Alex says. “But then I think that I only want the cure for my brother. I don’t know. It brings up a lot of complex feelings.”

“It’s a major life decision, hotshot.” It's an endearment that is unfamiliar rolling off his tongue, but Darwin finds he quite likes it.

“Like falling in love with an Immortal?”

“That might just be a cruel twist of fate.”

“You think us meeting was cruel?”

“I did spill hot chocolate on your shirt.”

Alex laughs. “I did like that shirt.”

They’re silent for a long while after that, but Darwin throw his coffee cup away and reaches out for Alex’s hand.

“Imagine if we lived in the sixties and couldn’t do this,” he says.

“Did you?”

“I lived through them,” Darwin shrugs. “But there was no one whose hand I wanted to hold enough to risk reaching out.” There’s something unspoken there, about being immortal and gay and black and a mutant all rolled into one, but if the way Alex squeezes his hand and smiles is any indicator, the message came through loud and clear.

 

* * *

 

(In another world, in the sixties, a man who can adapt and a boy who can fire plasma out of his chest link pinkies under a poker table on the Las Vegas strip. No one notices except the beat of their own hearts.)

(In another world, a man who can adapt breaks the immortal curse on himself by never reforming, and a boy who can fire plasma out of his chest lives with grief and regrets abound.)

(But those are not this world. In this world, Darwin leans his head close to Alex’s ear and they share a laugh over a terrible joke Darwin’s heard a thousand times before. Maybe they have six weeks and maybe they have sixty years, but Darwin knows that immortal life is not worth living if you don’t have someone to share it with for at least a little while.)

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hello or send me more prompts i am always accepting them](http://citadelofswords.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
